26X Trailer

[Chip Hindes]

I agree most of the marker/lighting stuff you mentioned doesn't make a lot of sense; I was under the impression you were missing the side marker lamps, the ones that usually go on the fenders. If not, my mistake and never mind

I believe the triple rear facing marker lamps should legally be on the end of the mast, or perhaps on the motor. Mac provided a cheesy plug in extension cord setup (wired with their standard white lamp cord) to do this on mine, though the trailer end connector is totally exposed and rusty, and it's such a PITA I've never used it, though I admit it might keep me from being rear ended. And for those who are wondering about my "incident", that one occured in the daytime I've been thinking about moving the connector to the top of one of the goal posts to keep it out of the water, but haven't gotten around to it yet. If you still have the Mac original you could wire it in fairly easily.

I wouldn't count on balancing the wheels to fix your fender shake problem. Unless yours are substantially different than the stock design, I think it's more a matter that the design has them cantilevered on long brackets, quite a long ways out from the trailer frame. The stock fenders do the same thing. I had quite a lot of shake on my new tandem fenders after the intial intallation, and found that the nuts holding the brackets to the frame were loosening up just like the lug nuts. Just like the lug nuts after tightening them a few times, they stopped getting loose,and the shake was reduced considerably though not eliminated. Try this before you blow the bucks on balancing and see if it helps.

I will be interested to know what is the wear pattern with your bias tires. I left two of the original ST215D14 on the original axle on mine (now on the rear). They are wearing quite badly on the outer edges, similar to gross underinflation, while the two new ST205R14 radials on the front axle are showing essentially no wear at all. Could be the tires or could be the location. BTW, smart move on the 205 versus 215; the 215 are virtually impossible to find when you're on the road ("Yes sir, we can order those and have them here in two or three days") .

Did you find a buyer or some other use for the original trailer, or just scrap it? Wouldn't make much of a planter for your yard, I guess.

[Jack O'Brien]

I don't know that the fender shaking is caused by off-balance wheels but, as an old tire maker, I believe in balancing. My fenders are mounted at each end with a 4-inch aluminum channel bolted to the frame like every other trailer. There is also a heavy, flat 1 1/2" or 2" aluminum brace bolted to the outside middle of the fender and down to the frame at about a 45 degree angle as a stiffener.

Per Ace recommendation, I had the tires fully inflated, i.e. 50 psi, and the boat lightly loaded for the trip home. As this trailer and its suspension is rated for 6000 lbs my two-thirds load probably bounced and shook more than was necessary and more than it would have if it had been heavier.

I double checked the following with a Goodyear Tire Engineer. It is not always necessary to have tires fully inflated. There is a linear relationship between inflation pressure and load bearing capacity. For a ST 205D14, 6PR, load rating C, 1760 lbs @ 50 psi, try this as an example.

Boat 2350 lbs
motor 250
3 batteries 205
12 gal gas 70
anchors & chain 50
Misc. junk 75
SUB-TOTAL 3000
trailer 1100
LESS tongue wt. (400)
TOTAL on 4 tires 3700
total per tire 925
25% safety factor 230
desired capacity 1155
% of 1760 cap. = 66%
66% of 50 psi = 34 psi

So for a load like this I would run the tires at 35 psi and let them absorb more of the road shock. This would be more than sufficient to prevent excess heat buildup and tread wear would be better when properly inflated for the load.

I found a buyer for the old trailer. See the postings by COMPROMISE on the first two pages of this thread. By the way, I inflated the tires on the old trailer to 55 psi, 10% over maximum.

[Chip Hindes]

I already discussed reducing the inflation pressure for tandem axles on an earlier thread, and I believe the recommendation to run them at a full 50 psi is way off base. Besides wearing the center of the tire from overinflation, it will transmit more shock loading from the road surface to the trailer and boat, and that's not good.

Since adding the second axle I normally run mine around 40 psi. I think there is probably a compromise between dropping them all the way down for "correct" load carrying capacity, and making them too soft so they wallow excessively side to side. Likewise, I believe exceeding the recommended max is misguided as well, though it's now a moot point in your case.

I know tire guys like to balance them all, but truthfully, only the front tires are critical on most vehicles; the rears and all trailer tires probably don't need to be balanced unless they're grossly out. Certainly though, it can't hurt.